blog archive 2003
06/12/03 - merchandise!
Had a mess about with pixeltees which lets you make your own iconic (maybe ironic?) block pixel apparel. Made a hermitgames shop just so I could do a few Tshirts I wanted to make, I won't really make any money off them but if just incase someone out there wants to wear one it's open. The process is ridiculously easy in a futuristic-interweb-actually-working kinda way, so why not design your own range and become a rag trade mogul?
[06/12/03-MattV]
30/11/03 - new ABA game...
Parsec 47 is a bonkers-fast shooter from the consistently excellent and increasingly prolific ABA Games. The theme is retro enemies (they only take a few hits) fused into a modern shooter (millions of bullets and small player hit section). Less experimental that previous ABA games, it's nice to get a focused game from Kenta Cho, even if it is rock hard.
[30/11/03-MattV]
29/11/03 - Mania on the track...
Just been playing the demo version of Trackmania, an excellent game. It's a car game with a built in, and actually part of the game in puzzle mode, track editor. Stunt Car Racer vs Elastomania vs Monkey Ball.
[29/11/03-MattV]
26/11/03 - BG sorted...
Finally got a BG into Balf that I'm happy with, also done a bunch of fixes, still loads to do but it's getting there.
Been playing lots of games recently. Prince of Persia was nice, some very cliched gaming concepts and lack of subtlety tho plus but it just reminded me how absolutely fantastic ICO was. Rebel Strike was crap (and yes I liked RS2). Manhunt, MK:DD and Castlevania LoI all fall somewhere between those two.
Time for a NCoT and some more coding I think.
[26/11/03-MattV]
15/11/03 - Small MarioPac update...
At the request of the esteemed Stuart Campbell I have enabled the up/down axis for use in Mario Pac. So now you can use up on analog sticks as thrust, or down as left and up as shoot or whatever crazy-dumb combination you can think of involving the left/right, up/down axis and the joystick buttons. The main Windows Installer and zip file versions are ready to go, mirror 2 and 3 will filter through in the next few days probably.
[15/11/03-MattV]
13/11/03 - More Mario Madness...
Here is another freeware Mario game: Marioween. It's more of a standard 2d mario game than a bootleg fusion like Mario Pac or the Maridius game I mentioned a while back. But it's good fun all the same, adding several of the Mario64 moves to Mario's repertoire. Spooky halloween theme too (yeah I know I'm a day late on that).
[13/11/03-MattV]
30/10/03 - Hold shift and click refresh...
Done a bit of an overhaul on the site, lots of stuff fixed up and added and changed (and maybe broken?) The colour scheme isn't 100% final yet, I think it's a little hard to read still on fuzzy CRTs, let me know if you reckon it is.
Balf work is going well still, lots of code cleaning being done in preparation for the first proper beta build.
[30/10/03-MattV]
24/10/03 - new toy = Balf movie...
Just got myself a nice new shiny thing: a digital camera. Playing about with it today I made a little movie of Balf to test it out, here it is for you to have a look at too. Looks even nicer at 60fps :)
[24/10/03-MattV]
10/10/03 - Super Mario Pac V1.1...
Super Mario Pac version 1.1 is available now! This new version add music and a fullscreen mode as well as fixing and improving collision detection and water effects. It's also super compatible, no more directX8.1. Have fun and let me know what you think in the forum or via email.
[10/10/03-MattV]
07/10/03 - new Mario Pac soooon...
A new version of Mario Pac will be available within the next few days. It's *super* compatible, no more directX8.1, minimum spec is now 200mhz machine with win95. There are a few other little changes and improvements too :)
I've finally added ABA Games to the links section. Prompted by their latest release: a7xpg, which is as groovy as all their other games.
(Work on Balf continues). (slowly)...
[07/10/03-MattV]
05/09/03 - to the driftwood...
Got Wario Ware, my afterburnt GBA, my laptop, a CD full of SDL libs and the MarioPac source: I'm off to Cornwall for a week. Between directx - SDL conversion I'll be appreciating some decent drizzle and the odd pint or two I expect, proper job.
[05/09/03-MattV]
30/08/03 - Dedication is what you need....
Agust n1 has posted a Super Mario Pac highscore of 682000, which is a very high score indeed. He got to level **1-2 which means he clocked the game twice, I have trouble clocking it once and I wrote the thing :) This is one ninja skilled badass Roy-Castle-playing-a-copper-kettle-deserving Mario Pac player!
[30/08/03-MattV]
24/08/03 - Work continues...
I'm using the long weekend to continue work on Balf. Added the beginnnings of a front end today, this project is finally coming together. I've also done a little bit of work on a few other projects: Trench and Gloworm. They are both coming along well too, Gloworm should be out soon, maybe even before Balf!
[24/08/03-MattV]
13/08/03 - extremely appropriate...
For anyone who liked Super Mario Pac please try: MARIDIUS It's a genius blend of Gradius and the Super Mario NES era graphics/sound set. Go go get it now....
In other news I got hit by the MSblast thing, it's dead now thankfully and the projects were unaffected.
[13/08/03-MattV]
03/08/03 - screenshots...
While I do battle with the physics code trying to put these dastardly movement generators in feel free to melt your eyes with these:
and I have put another one on the Balf page, tho it's only of the level editor.
[03/08/03-MattV]
01/08/03 - get ready...
I'm all set for a weekend coding on Balf, hopefully FzeroGX won't distact me too much with its rock-hard brilliantness. I've been working on the movement generators this week and hope to get them incorporated into the game proper now I have a decent amount of time. They look great sinusing and bouncing about in the testbed, when I hook the controllers up to the actual full 3d meshes it ought to be *really* great. Screenshots coming very soon too...
[01/08/03-MattV]
07/07/03 - monday...
Stuart Campbell, Paul Rose (Mr Biffo), Kieron Gillen and Jonathan Nash: Together at last! Well on a trial subscription-based games website at least. Direct your browser to http://digiworld.tv in six days time for some (probably) incredibly fine games journalism, or go there now for a glib animation.
Balf is one of those games that people on web forums will claim can be done "in ten minutes" with mathengine or havok or whatever super physics engine is en-vogue at the moment. And it probably could be, but it hasn't. Instead I have spent ages doing it all myself, tweaking and honing and reimplementing. I just hope when I finish it will be fun to play and good enough to look at.
[07/07/03-MattV]
05/07/03 - More Balf work...
Spent today adding a few special effects into Balf, some nice alpha blending goodness going on in there now. I've had a play with the BG a bit too, I'm still not happy with it but I have a few more ideas I will have to try. I could release the game without backgrounds, or with a simple gradient sky-dome but I (probably unrealistically) want Balf to look interesting and different, a flat texture in the BG won't achieve this.
[05/07/03-MattV]
02/07/03 - Balf page online...
I have put up a page for Balf which will almost definately be the next game from us. The gameplay is now finally locked down and I can work on graphics and level design until I think it's ready. Screenshots and info will gradually trickle onto the site so keep checking back if you're interested.
[02/07/03-MattV]
28/06/03 - did I hear droppage?
Many packages are on their way to me. Viewtiful Joe, Mr Driller Drill Land and Wario World should keep me satisfied for a long while on the games front. While I wait for them Midtown Madness 3, which I purchased this morning, is proving excellent fun (recommended providing you have Xbox Live!).
I also finally managed to track down some anime that I've been trying to get for ages thanks to www.sensasian.com. Laputa Castle in the Sky (think Skies of Arcadia crossed with Mysterious Cities of Gold), My Neighbour Totoro (fat-spirit-pokemon befreinds boy) and Porco Rosso (a pig! in a biplane!) are also all on their way. Did you guess that I've just been paid?
Top game site linkage:
www.video-fenky.com brings some great irreverant gaming goodness.
www.insertcredit.com was featured in Edge this month and rightly so, proper grown up games coverage.
[28/06/03-MattV]
18/06/03 - coming soon (ish) ...
[18/06/03-MattV]
07/06/03 - new visitors...
The site has been getting a lot of visitors over the last few days, mostly direct request rather than linked off another page. This makes me suspect hermitgames has possibly been mentioned in another magazine, if anyone has seen Super Mario Pac or hermitgames mentioned somewhere other than the web please post in the forums or drop me an email, cheers.
I'm spending this weekend working on 3d gubbins for the next projects, it's all working out nicely so far :)
[07/06/03-MattV]
01/06/03 - no screenshots yet...
I was planning on putting up some info and screens on the next two projects today but I got carried away earlier ripping apart the renderer. Any shots I might take now would look really crap so it'll be a few more days but rest assured it'll look much nicer :)
[01/06/03-MattV]
17/05/03 - Colour change...
A few html fixes and a bit of a colour change. The site is starting to look a bit better now, just got to sort out the games page, which is still looking a bit sparse.
Pages for the new projects coming soon along with a couple of WIP screenshots.
[17/05/03-MattV]
09/05/03 - C&VG
Computer and Videogames magazine (#260) have given hermitgames, mariopac specifically, a mention (pg13). I think the extra visitors recently have been down to this. If anyone sees hermitgames mentioned in print anywhere else please drop me a message or post in the forums.
I'm starting work (at a real type job) on monday, I'm hoping to get the new site up before then, stay tuned!
[09/05/03-MattV]
21/04/03 - Funky Chaos
I have to recommend Chaos Funk, it's a PC remake of the speccy classic Chaos. If you never played it Chaos is a strategy game by Julian Gallop (the guy responsible for Rebelstar, Laser Squad and Xcom/UFO). This update is true to the original but with wizzy vector graphics and mouse control. It seems to be updated regularly too so Illusion and proper Undead creature support shouldn't be too far off. Check it out.
[21/04/03-MattV]
16/04/03 - EDGE !
Edge Magazine have given us a mention this month #123, pg 19. They really seem to have understood what I'm trying to do, which i'm very pleased about. And to have them describe my game as "exceptionally entertaining" is praise indeed.
A web revamp is coming soon along with details of our next two projects. Stay tuned...
[16/04/03-MattV]
06/04/03 - work continues...
The new Zelda has been keeping me away from the computer the last few days but work is being done on the next hermitgames. There are two in development, both 3D this time and original rather than "bootleg". Lots of great ideas have been offered for Super Mario Pac 2 as well, i'll let it kick about in my head for a while yet tho. A new version of MarioPac is coming too, to try and fix some of the problems with older videocards, expect it within the next few months.
[06/04/03-MattV]
24/03/03 - Hectic...
Lots of downloads and score submissions and activity. I'm glad so many people are enjoying the game. I managed to do a bit of work figuring out DirectX 7 in the last few days and I think all future stuff will be written using this API rather than DirectX 8.1. This is because lots of people don't have DirectX 8.1 installed and have no wish to download a 23meg file to play a game they grabbed off the net. I need to cater for as many people as possible with my upcoming original titles. I just hope they prove half a popular as Mario Pac.
[24/03/03-MattV]
17/03/03 - Uncleclive compo
The idea for Super Mario Pac originally came from this image. It was part of a games-we'll-never-see-from-Rare spoof on the excellent games/humour site UncleClive.co.uk. Well now Uncle Clive are running a Mario Pac score competition and the winner gets a Load Rage T-shirt of their choice. Get playing...
[17/03/03-MattV]
18/03/03 - Super Mario Pac - released!
It's online now
click here to grab it.
[18/03/03-MattV]
08/03/03 - Finished!
It's finished. Well kinda. Over the next few days I will be getting it tested by a few people, polishing up some of the sound effects and wrapping the game up in a user friendly installer. Providing my hard drive doesn't crash or something the game will be out next week.
[08/03/03-MattV]
07/03/03 - Release Imminent!
Huge amounts done on Super Mario Pac. I'm working to today being the completion deadline, which means I shouldn't be arsing about writing this. I want to sit on it for a couple of days and build some promotion as well as get the select few to test it for me. Hopefully there will be relatively few bugs.
In other news the shack has been invaded by builders, well I suppose they are painters really seeing as they are here to achieve paintage. Bit of an annoying disruption having everything covered in sheets, the upside being it helps me get on with SMP and not play GTA4 or watch terrible daytimeTV.
[07/03/03-MattV]
27/02/03 - Webcomic...
Have a look at Blame Uncle Clive. It's a new webcomic by Mr. XXXX XXXX. Funny.
[27/02/03-MattV]
24/02/03 - 'sgreat this ADLS lark...
My ADSL got connected, woo and hoo. Downloaded, burnt to VCD and watched in my DVD player the first ep of Buffy season 7. Good opening episode: new scoobie gang via Dawn and a morphing baddie, nice to see all those old end of series bosses. "Westbury - England" looks nice too, must try and find that on a map.
Ikaruga (NGC version) arrived today. Definately superior to the DC version. It has another vertical screen mode offering more zoom. All new Challenge mode which plonks you down in normal with no continues and gives you an internet registerable code when you check out. Best of all there is Conquest which provides demos on how to get max scores on each level and lets you practice bite size chunks of the stages in normal and half speed. Mmmm shmup-goodness.
[24/02/03-MattV]
18/02/03 - Retail Update...
My Gamecube version of Ikaruga is on it's way here now. I do have the Dreamcast version but not a suitable bootdisk to run it in 60hz, plus I want to be able to enter the score competition and run the game on a console thats actually plugged into my TV, rather that crying in the corner. ADSL is being retrofitted to the shack this week, pipex are doing a deal whereby you get the ADSL modem for free and the monthly subs are only £23. Still got the line test to pass yet tho. Mr Driller Drill Land is still on order, taunting me with it's out-of-stock-ness. Mr. Driller is DigDugs son! Do you see? No wonder it is sold out. Lastly I heard that my Zelda bonus disk has been put aside, March can't come soon enough. Better send in postie reinforcements Mr Royal Mail man.
[18/02/03-MattV]
14/02/03 - Forum!
The Forum is now OPEN. It's only a free gamers.com one but better than nothing, sorry for the terrible colour scheme. Why not go and leave me a message?
[14/02/03-MattV]
14/02/03 - Beta beater...
The first MarioPac beta version went out yesterday to just a few people. It's been very well recieved and I've got some good feedback on what I need to do next. Everyone has said it's too hard, I guess I must have become too good at the game while playtesting :) Not long now before the final release...
[14/02/03-MattV]
10/02/03 - Priorities...
Been working on MarioPac today (enemy spawning: finished, more sfx added, level tweaking). I really shouldn't be working on it seeing as i'll be giving it away for free to you lot. My excuse is that it will generate site traffic for the shareware stuff, but there actually ought to be shareware stuff here first. Oh well, it's a nice little game so I get satisfaction from doing it just no cash, and quite soon thats going to be a real problem. Beans on toast and jacket potatoes for a while then :)
[10/02/03-MattV]
10/02/03 - SDL not Linux-ey
I have been struggling to choose a game API recenty, but I discounted SDL because I thought it was too Linux-ey. You know the kind of thing: I would have to compile it myself. It would be compressed in multiple obscurely named tar.gz files. So "portable" that it actually runs at a snails pace on everything. Documentation only available on the web at some opensource community site, and actually consisting of just the source code comments and function names.
But it's not like that at all, instead it is great. Lean, mean and easy to use. Much recommended.
[10/02/03-MattV]
05/02/03 - More worms (not caped) and more projects...
Yesterday I knocked up another prototype for one of my designs, a puzzle game I was working on for the psx about a year ago. Now it's another candidate for shareware if I can get the gameplay elements working in a fun way. This means I am working on 3 projects at once now so I really hope MarioPac reaches escape velocity soon to give me more time to concentrate on the other two. Think I will get myself a notebook to store my game ideas in, maybe then I wont have to code up a prototype immediately after inspiration.
I noticed Team17 have released more info about Worms 3. I spent a few yeeks before christmas working on a 3d worms clone so I found their implementation interesting. It's looking really "wormey" plus it's good to see Team17 finally working on a game thats not already available for free or as shareware :) Actually looking at Worms3d gives me another idea for a game, where's that notebook?
[05/02/03-MattV]
01/02/03 - Choosing APIs and Peter Kay...
I've been looking at different APIs over the last few days, as well as continuing mariopac. I really like Blitz3d and think I might purchase it, the speed with which you can get stuff done is amazing. It's also really nice and stable, running on directX7. Should be quite good for my original shareware stuff. I'm sticking with DirectX8.1 for MarioPac, although I might do a blitz port at a later date if people report a lot of compatibility problems.
Mary and I went to see Peter Kay at the Hammersmith Apollo yesterday. The show was good, but the venue was just too large and despite us having paid £27 we were miles away from the stage. If you're going to the Apollo make sure you have good seats up close. Hopefully the Ross Noble gig we're going to in March will be much more intimate...
[01/02/03-MattV]
29/01/03 - Evil guppies and caped worms...
Added five new enemies into Mario Pac yesterday. My favourite has to be caped worms (not sure they actually are worms tho). They hang about at the side of the screen for a bit then zoom toward the player, tracking them a bit. The player really needs to kill them early because when there are more than three or four launching things get really tricky, especially if you are running low on water. The last few enemies are just mods of the existing ones so i'm mostly balancing and level designing now. Betas coming soon for the lucky ones...
[29/01/03-MattV]
27/01/03 - All change, again...
Yep I know I only changed the HTML a couple of weeks ago but I wasn't really happy with the ripped-off-yarozescene look, too corporate. I want a nice cosy hermit-ey feel for this place so I wasted today wrapped in HTML and CSS. I have probably gone too far the other way now and it all looks a bit low-rent, oh well. The site should evolve from this shell into something half-decent.
I have done an absolute load of MarioPac stuff recently. Since I added a refilling element to the water-pac the game has become properly playable. Now it's just down to designing some interesting and balanced enemies and sticking them into levels.
[27/01/03-MattV]
26/01/03 - PHP is go...
I've added a little script to make the adding of news/updates easier. If you are reading this then it's working! The side-effect is that we've lost the old news, recent updates have been: PSone CD images ( iso and CDRwin ) and a Roller exe for emu users.
[26/01/03-MattV]
